


Beyond a Seasonable Doubt

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [29]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: "It's awful. [...] So no wonder it's something we don't want to do on our own.", Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Ned and Betty being Ned and Betty but now as soulmates, POV Alternating, Prompt Fic, Soulmates, Tumblr Prompt, as the Hot Priest in Fleabag said about love:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24859744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: Peter's been living in winter for 17 years. A single smile from his soulmate would bring him into spring. Today, he finally has a real conversation with MJ, the girl he's pretty sure is the one.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Minor Betty Brant/Ned Leeds - Relationship
Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368034
Comments: 56
Kudos: 132
Collections: Spideychelle Week 2020





	Beyond a Seasonable Doubt

**Author's Note:**

> Created for Day 2 of Spideychelle Week 2020!
> 
> Today's prompt: Soulmate AU

Every day, Peter Parker wakes up certain of three things: that he won’t leave himself enough time to finish his cereal, that he should dress for snow, and the (probable) identity of his soulmate.

Ok, the first one’s not a certainty _per say_ ―sometimes he has microwave oatmeal or blueberry toaster waffles―but the second one’s been true his whole life. Every single day, for the past seventeen years and change, he’s been swaddled for winter weather. Could be January when he’s three years old and his puffy snowsuit looks totally appropriate as his mom pushes him down a slushy sidewalk in his stroller. Could be August 10th just last year and he’s wearing a woolen fisherman sweater (inherited from his Uncle Ben) and two pairs of socks to his own birthday pool party. Until his soulmate is confirmed, he won’t be part of the regular changing of the seasons that, up to this point, he’s only heard about and seen pictures and video of. For all intents and purposes, in Peter’s world, it’s winter. Some people say the date they’re stuck on bothers them. Personally, he doesn’t know how it could, since he’s never known anything different. You just have to layer up and get on with it.

His arm’s deep in his backpack, feeling around for the scarf he could swear he stuffed in there yesterday, as he walks into the kitchen. It’s a rare day; both Happy and May are at the table, working from home today. With ambivalence to the inevitability that he’ll be dumping half of it in the sink, Peter starts in on his Cheerios. He’s less apathetic about watching his dining companions. They haven’t had the easiest path, so he studies them for clues. May’s first soulmate was Uncle Ben. That’s not up for debate. Within 24 hours of when they met, the seasons adjusted themselves and two more people joined the rest of the world’s matched soulmates in enjoying the proper rotation of the earth around the sun. After Ben’s death, May told Peter that the seasons continued to change for her, but they slowed. Once a couple of years passed, there was a noticeable lag. She fell out of step with the world. When Happy came on the scene, things got back on track. Voilà, soulmate number two. From what Peter’s read, it’s not that unusual to find another soulmate if you lose your first, but honestly, he’d be happy just to get one.

May and Happy are dressed for mid-spring.

“Rain today?” Peter wonders, spooning Cheerios into his mouth.

“It’s holding off for now,” his aunt informs him.

When he turns to look out the window, there’s a cottony haze of thick snowflakes, like all of Queens is having a pillow fight on the rooftops. He sighs with acceptance rather than despair. Nothing was going to change overnight. It couldn’t, not without _her_ , whoever she is. (He thinks he knows.)

“Cool.”

He leaves in a rush, slopping milk into the sink, and pulling on a hat.

A season isn’t much of a clue, but that’s not exactly how everyone experiences their pre-soulmate life. Instead of cycling through an entire spring, for example, and then starting again, each person exists in the weather as it was on the day their soulmate was born. The universe was kinda against Peter from the first. Snow, in his mind, goes with winter, but of course, in their New York climate, snow isn’t trapped between the boundaries of December and March. It wasn’t until he got his second clue that he figured out the first. The second clue was that this one girl would never smile at him. Soulmates need to smile at each other. That’s it. Just smile and everything else falls into place. No more dressing for the same temperature every day or involuntarily shivering when they see people in shorts and t-shirts in a world they observe to be covered in snow. Most people who haven’t found their soulmate yet smile a lot, trying to catch everyone’s eye, in the hope of locating the _right_ person, so the fact that this one girl refused to smile at him (and continues to refuse) made Peter curious―curious enough to do some research to find out her birthday. End of November. Meaning autumn, not winter. He checked the weather for the year he was born, assuming he’s got the right girl and they share a birth year. Bingo. Big cold front, unexpectedly heavy snowfall that day. Plus, this girl dresses like it’s the peak of summer, which fits with when _his_ birthday is, and he’s never seen her wear an outfit for cooler weather or hang around with any one person in particular (soulmates, especially those his age, tend to cling).

So, the third certainty. Peter’s pretty sure he knows who his soulmate is. What he doesn’t know is why the hell Michelle Jones won’t smile at him.

* * *

Every day, Michelle Jones wakes up certain of three things: that the inevitable sweat patches in the armpits of her uniform shirt will aid her in bullying Coach Wilson into letting her sit out during gym, that Peter Parker is her soulmate, and that she’d really prefer that he wasn’t.

People think she’s rude, which is maybe correct in the effect she has on them but not in the intention of her actions. She doesn’t like acting a certain way because it’s how she’s _supposed_ to act. She doesn’t like etiquette, she doesn’t like rules, and she doesn’t like soulmates. Doesn’t want one, doesn’t need one. It’s an opinion adults condescendingly informed her she’d grow out of―as if accepting that she’s being denied free will is the kind of thing she’d mature into―until she quit voicing it. People love the system as long as they believe it’s working for them. What’s childish, as far as MJ is concerned, is placing complete faith in something as pervasive as soulmates simply because it seems too big to fail. That expression always makes her think of the Titanic.

She knows it’s not the cotton candy fantasy everyone wants to believe it is, and she’s not just disillusioned because she wakes up to a heatwave every day and has to carry deodorant with her _all the time_. Like most people, she was born the child of two soulmates. They met, they smiled, they took the soulmate bait, hook, line, and sinker. And then, even though they loved each other and got married and made MJ, her mom became mildly depressed. Her doctor thought it was the consequence of the seasons. MJ’s dad was a late-April baby, so maybe her mom was just one of those people who took longer to get used to variations in temperature and hours of daylight. The doctor thought she’d snap out of it when winter ended and nice weather came again. The problem was that MJ’s mom packed up and left in February. MJ’s never going to know for sure if it was the weather that made her go, but she does know that the soulmate bond wasn’t enough to make her mom stay. It taught her that, if a person’s determined enough, they can override destiny.

So she’s thankful to her mom, wherever she is, for that.

Based on her motives for distrusting the soulmate influence, the reason she doesn’t want Peter should be because she doesn’t want _anybody_ , but no, it’s him in particular that MJ’s pretty much convinced she could do without. He’s smart, funny on occasion and mostly by accident, and he’s experienced family tragedy that’s different from hers, so they could connect over their messed-up pasts without too much overlap. All of that is more than she wants to deal with. If the universe attempted to shack her up with some trust-fund-having, loafer-wearing, future-frat-house-keg-meister, she could’ve worked with that. She would’ve smiled at the silver-spoon-suckling to confirm they were soulmates, then let that puppy-dog trail her from protest to protest while she told him when to pull out his chequebook and how many zeros to put down. There would’ve been a clear, Robin Hoodian purpose to that relationship. There’s not a _point_ to Peter, besides him being someone she could very probably, very quickly fall in love with. Obviously, she can’t do that because soulmates are bullshit and true love is a con and long-term monogamy is a doomed enterprise.

…And she’s going to be late for her first class, Biology. Ugh, Peter always does this to her―intentionally walks slow to try to trick her into catching up with him. All that does is make MJ take a longer route and misjudge how quickly she needs to move. She wishes he’d knock it off. He’s backed off on a lot of other things for her sake (that’s an assumption based on observation because, of course, she’s never initiated a conversation with him), like sitting across from her in the cafeteria and dropping out of marching band (he plays trombone, she plays euphonium, and the brass section was too cozy a space for successfully avoiding someone). That second one was a waste because she was about to quit anyway, so now neither of them are in it and the whole band’s off balance. Too many fucking flautists. If Peter would commit to doing one or the other―pestering her or ignoring her―that would be convenient, but he’s inconsistent and she’s annoyed.

Oh, here’s another thing that happens every day: MJ hopes her displeasure will protect her from the urge to smile at the adorable, well-intentioned pain in her neck that destiny wants to tie her to until one of them drops dead or, marginally less dramatic, runs out on the young family they’ve created. It really pisses her off that Peter seems like he’ll be a great dad in another decade or two.

“Hey, MJ,” he says, when she finally makes it to Bio and slides behind the lab desk in front of his.

“Kiss my ass, Parker,” she mutters back.

He’s the reason for the sweat running down her spine. MJ pinches the front of her t-shirt and flaps it away from her skin, trying to stimulate enough airflow to make it through the period.

* * *

“You could trick her into smiling at you,” Ned suggests. They’re sitting together at lunch and Peter has a glumness hangover from MJ ignoring him (again) that morning.

“ _Babe_ ,” Betty admonishes.

“Babe, he’d only feel bad if MJ really is his soulmate. If she’s not, then at least they know for sure and they can quit being weird with each other.”

“I’m not being _weird_ with her,” Peter objects. “I’m just being nice! And I told you, I _know_ it’s her.”

“You get that feeling?” Ned checks. “That warm feeling like I got the first time I saw Betty’s beautiful face?”

“Aw, babe!”

Their arms are already linked as they eat, but now Betty lays her head on her soulmate’s shoulder. If they get much closer, she’ll be in Ned’s lap, at which point Peter will have to make himself scarce. Though love is cute, it’s also kind of an affliction with a lot of messy symptoms.

“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong!” he blurts out in frustration, jabbing at the salad May made him for lunch. “How could we be so incompatible?”

“You’re not though,” Betty counters. “You’re totally compatible.”

“Yeah, but we haven’t even taken the first step.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t think of it as the first step,” Ned suggests, being all wise.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked cautiously.

“Babe, you couldn’t be more correct,” Betty gushes. Peter sighs impatiently. He shouldn’t―they’re trying to help him―but it’s hard having paired up friends while his own soulmate stays just out of reach.

“Elaborate please,” he prompts.

He shifts in place and shivers when he accidentally moves out of the space his butt’s been warming. Meanwhile, here are Ned and Betty in their lightweight sweaters and sneakers. Peter’s boots clomp under the table.

“Well,” Ned posits, “isn’t confirming you’re soulmates more like the _final_ step? You’ve done your waiting and now you get to be together?” Betty kisses his cheek in agreement.

“Maybe,” Peter allows.

“If you accept that confirming your bond isn’t the very next step, then you can start considering what _is_ the next step. What do you think that might be, Peter?” Betty asks.

“I should… get MJ to tell me _why_ she isn’t ready or interested in confirming it. In a respectful way that doesn’t pressure her,” he adds when Betty narrows her eyes judgementally.

“And how do you plan to achieve that?”

“Babe,” Ned intercedes, “let’s give him a minute to think about it.”

Peter tries to do that while he finishes his lunch. There are a lot of vegetables in here and they’re seasonal, just not for the season he’s experiencing. May’s always trying to load him up with vitamin-rich foods, since most of his day’s snowy; the clouds clear for a while around the time he gets out of school, allowing him some sun on his face as long as he doesn’t dawdle or land in detention. That train of thought makes him realize that detention would be the perfect place to talk this out with MJ, except that he’s against Ned’s plan of tricking her into becoming his soulmate and making sure she landed in detention with him would probably involve tricking. He knows she used to hang out there voluntarily from time to time, but not since they became aware of their connection. Now, she seems to avoid any place she might get stuck in and be cornered by Peter.

Ugh! He’s so ready to love and be loved! It’s super awesome to have people to love and worry about and have breakfast with. Love and breakfast are precious, in Peter’s opinion, and so is time. Getting enough of it isn’t something to be depended upon. After his parents and then Uncle Ben, he can’t trust quantity―he gives and gets _quality_ love these days. He doesn’t know everything about Michelle Jones, but he’d like her to understand that, the irreplaceable value she represents to him. If she’d just be a plain envelope, he’d do all the work; put on the stamp, write out the address, compose the note it would hold. Right now, she’s like a sheet of paper, he guesses, one that they fold up into an envelope. She hasn’t been cut out or had that gross glue strip applied and it seems like it might be a long time before she’s ready for a letter or, like, a Happy Bar Mitzvah card. MJ might not want to be his envelope person, or she just might not know the things he could be for her (glue-licking, stamp-applying, _Mazel Tov!_ -writing). If she at least _knows_ , then he’ll concede that he’s done everything he can. If she _knows_ , it’ll hopefully be enough for her to make a decision. Peter can’t force her to decide in his favour, but even if she understands and decides that she needs another five years before she wants to talk to him about the probability of their being soulmates and maybe revisit the smiling thing, he’ll know something too. Waiting is really tough.

* * *

“Don’t smile at me,” Peter requests, both hands up, when MJ shuts her locker to see him standing there.

She rolls her eyes. Nothing about the one person she’s actively avoiding hanging out at a place she has to be makes her want to smile. Did he decide that if he couldn’t be her soulmate he’d settle for being her stalker?

…Probably not. He’s way too good a person for that. Seriously, she tries to make these made-up accusations stick to him, but he’s just not that guy. That doesn’t mean she accepts, likes, or appreciates this latest move to get her attention.

“Are you trying reverse psychology now?” MJ demands.

“I’m just trying to make it extra clear that, whatever your reasons are for not smiling, I respect them.” He shrugs his shoulders and she glances down at the lunchbox he’s carrying. She wonders what he ate today.

“What if I’m not smiling because I’m plotting a bank heist in my head? Do you respect that? Do you respect theft, Peter?”

His expression is so satisfyingly startled that she almost does smile. No, fuck this. There are only ten minutes or so left in the lunch hour and she can wander the halls until the next class starts. She goes to step around him, but their shoulders brush and she _feels_ something. It’s more aggressive than the welcoming warmth the bond (that’s what she attributes it to) usually makes her feel when she sees him. This is pure _affection_ and it’s really hard to put her back to it. MJ pauses, facing away from Peter, and she’s almost got the new feeling under control when he turns and starts walking beside her.

“I think we can figure this out,” he says eagerly. Dammit. His enthusiasm for learning is one of the traits she finds most attractive in him. Can’t he just lay off with that fucking fated appeal?

“I think I already have,” she shoots back, not looking at him. “The universe wants to play sock puppets and guess what? We’re the sock puppets.”

“Look,” Peter says. He’s shockingly persistent today as he jumps in front of her and catches her eye. “We don’t have to play by its rules. We can make our own.”

“You wanna be with me?” she asks point-blank. Her chin jerks up instinctively when she questions him, eyes appraising. Either the question or the blunt stare makes him blush.

“Yeah, I, I think I probably do.”

“You want me to fall in love with you? For us to get married? Live together? Have kids? Me and you against the world, forever?”

“Maybe?”

“Well, you can’t just want one thing, Peter,” MJ tells him. Her fingers grip hard at the books in her hands. “There’s no shallow end of the soulmate bond. Its plan is not for us to casually date and let things plateau if it doesn’t work out.”

“But it would work out.” Poor thing looks confused.

“Says who?”

He shrugs.

“Everybody.”

“Check your sources.”

She hangs a left into the girls’ bathroom before Peter can respond, but he’s waiting in the hall when she returns.

“You can’t ignore it,” is the first thing he says to her, pushing off the wall. This time, MJ plants her feet.

“Or _you_ , apparently, if you keep stalking me.”

“I’m not trying to. I just want us―”

“To talk,” she finishes for him. “Which is pointless. You’re not going to gain any ground with me, Peter. I have no ground for you to gain on this issue.”

“Maybe, if you told me why you won’t smile, you’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine.”

“You do not. You’re trying _not_ to let someone care a lot about you when it’s guaranteed that they would. He would. I would,” Peter rambles. He takes a deep breath and looks her firmly in the eye. “Isn’t that, like, the one thing everybody wants? To be able to count on someone caring?”

“I’m not broken just because I don’t want what everybody wants,” she bites back, feeling herself flush with annoyance and, beneath that, embarrassment at being assessed.

“I would never call you broken,” he swears in a quiet voice. He is _not_ going to make her tear up right now. She’s softening though, she can feel it. Stupid sincere soulmate. “I mean, if anything, _I’m_ broken, so I could never judge, even if I wanted to. I know people try hard to find their perfect match, but I feel greedy sometimes with how badly I want it to happen to me. I know it’s not fair to you, I’ve been coming to terms with―”

“You’re not broken, Peter. Wanting someone to love you doesn’t make you broken. Or, if it does, then most people are. You’re not alone just because you don’t have me.”

Clearly, the time to stop herself was one sentence sooner. Because the jerk smiles at her and the next thing she does is agree to discuss this further after school.

* * *

There was something she said, while they were talking after lunch, that has him considering their potential as platonic soulmates well into third period. That’s what soulmates are for some people―they want all of the kindness and support of the bond with none of the romance, and the universe gives them what they need. When MJ said that stuff about marriage and babies and forever, Peter began contemplating whether they could achieve the third thing without the first two. Almost immediately, he ruled it out. He knew what attraction felt like. Sure, being soulmates was probably influencing him towards MJ, but she wasn’t the only person he found attractive. He used to have a crush on Liz. One day, when his Business class was on a field trip and it rained, he saw Flash with all the product washed out of his hair and was attracted to _him_ (right up until Flash made a few loud comments about getting ‘Penis’ out of the cold weather before he shriveled up).

The conclusion he comes to is clear: Peter’s definitely hot for MJ. While marriage can wait, falling dizzily, _hopelessly_ in love―and properly, in the kind of love they could have with their soulmate bond confirmed―is something he can only ever half-heartedly postpone. He wants to give her presents _with love_ on her birthday. He wants to hug her and feel a new kind of complete. He wants to be her Valentine.

When Peter sees MJ hanging back to wait for him once the final bell rings, he’s relieved. Then tense. Not screwing this up might literally be the most important thing in his future. Trying to reassure her that he isn’t planning some sort of ambush to force a smile out of her, he suggests they talk someplace where other people will be around. She flat-out refuses to go to a coffee shop with him because it would be way too date-like. (Yeah, he gets that, picturing an awkward moment in which he attempts to pay for both their orders, or their shoes bump under the table.) They agree on the gym, where the girls’ indoor soccer team is having practice. Together―him in flannel-lined jeans and her in shorts―they thud up the bleachers to sit at the very top. MJ catches her foot and Peter notices that, when he instinctively reaches out to steady her, she shies away with a regretful look on her face. He really doesn’t expect her to explain, but then she does as they sit down.

“It does something to me,” she says, jerking her head as though to reference their near-contact.

Peter shrugs.

“Yeah, me too, but I’ve never been trying to avoid that feeling. I’ve gotten used to, like, um,” he stammers, “leaning into it. But I’m sorry. I won’t touch you.”

“Well, you know that I have the opposite habit.” MJ takes a deep breath, and Peter gets the sense that this would be the moment for her to be vulnerable with him and explain why she works so hard to ignore him. Ultimately, volunteering that information appears to be too much of an emotional effort. She decides to ask, “Is that something you’re interested in knowing more about?”

“Anything you wanna tell me,” he says quickly. He’s been waiting forever for this opportunity. “You can ask me things too. Open book.”

“I’m… not used to just spilling stuff about my life.”

He considers that.

“Why’d you say yes to this?”

She sighs and leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees. Then, she cups her face in her hand and turns to meet his eye.

“I’m tired of the way seeing you is always such a big deal. The bond says it’s _wonderful_ and my brain hates it. I don’t want to be so torn all the time.”

“So…” he begins uncertainly. “Which outcome are you hoping for? Thinking I’m wonderful or hating my guts?”

The speed with which MJ turns her face away from him makes him wonder if she’s hiding a smile. He wasn’t _trying_ to be funny.

“Quit twisting my words,” she requests, straight-faced as she stares straight ahead to where the soccer players are booting around what looks like an oversized tennis ball. “I didn’t say I hate you.”

“Just your brain.”

“Mhmm. My brain hates the _idea_ of you.”

“ _MJ_ ,” Peter says earnestly. She looks at him. “Why?”

“You control my whole life!” she says abruptly. “I’m sweating from climbing these stupid bleachers because of _you_. I have the urge to smile right now, when I’m irritated, because of _you_. Your existence tells me what to wear even when I’m not with you and how to feel whenever I see you.”

“I’m sorry―”

“And I can’t even seriously blame you because it’s not actually your fault!”

The girls’ team has quit weaving and shooting the ball, heading and passing it. Peter gets that MJ wanted a public place, but now he knows they’re being eavesdropped on. He’s quiet, though not because of the potential listeners; he doesn’t want to stop MJ from saying whatever she might tell him next. He’s been longing to hear her thoughts for _ages_.

“And that’s just, like, surface stuff!” she huffs. She’s flushed. If he could hold her face between his hands, the warmth might stay with him all the way home while he trudges along the sidewalk, ploughing snow aside with his shins.

“Please,” Peter says softly, “tell me more. Tell me anything you want.”

* * *

She went into it knowing she wouldn’t be allowing her soulmate to make her smile, but MJ didn’t anticipate letting him see her cry. He’s so _open_ and she’s fortified her defenses against this topic for such a long time. Apparently, that’s enough for discussing her emotions and fears to make her crack like an egg. Peter doesn’t rush her or tell her that her feelings are the wrong feelings and the whole time he watches her face with a startling amount of attention. Has anybody looked at her like this? _Really_ looked at her? Ever? She feels like a mom would’ve, but she can’t remember if _her_ mom did. And that’s who she’s talking about, that’s the part of the story she’s at, when she feels the tears dribble out and tilts her head to let them drain away over her cheek. God, this is embarrassing. At least the soccer team packed up and left before she felt her throat getting thick.

“I don’t know if I’m still just letting my mom decide whether or not I get to be happy,” MJ admits, face wet until she catches her tear tracks with the back of her wrist. “I’m trying to do this, ignore the soulmate bond, for _me_ , but maybe… I don’t know…”

“You’re forcing me away from you?” Peter suggests.

“Yeah. I’m abandoning you before we can get attached.” Somehow, this dork has Kleenex in his backpack and hands her one. She blows her nose hard, then crumples the tissue in her hand. “Pretty fucked up.”

“Ok, this is gonna sound really stupid, because we’re not even together, but I don’t think I’m the kind of person who could leave you.”

“You can’t promise that though,” MJ says―so, so quietly. She wants her words to run away and hide under the bleachers with the dust bunnies.

“Would you rather have nothing?” he asks.

Coming from someone else, she’s pretty sure that would be an ultimatum, some kind of threat to accept him as her soulmate _now_ or never get another chance. Peter asks it with as little agenda as he’s asked everything else, easing her through her memories and her dreads.

“I’m not sure,” she says.

“Can I tell you something? _I’m_ not sure I could be with someone whose goal was to resist getting or giving love. I mean, I’ve heard everything you’ve told me and I can see why you’ve been dodging the soulmate thing, but if _you_ get to look way ahead and worry about things that are only possible and far in the future, like me leaving you, then I get to look ahead too.” He pauses and she nods to indicate that, yeah, that’s fair. MJ thinks this is very brave of him, stepping out of the situation for a second to consider what he might need later when what he wants is to be with her right away. “I don’t wanna be left either. I don’t want you not to be able to overcome the idea that soulmates are bad and wrong. Maybe it doesn’t matter if you think that in general, but if it’s a part of our relationship, then you’re always going to be expecting things to end. It would be like you were trying to think your way out of it instead of enjoying whatever we could have. And what we could have, by the way? I don’t think the bond has anything to say about that. Does it encourage us to get together? Yeah, sure, fine, it does and we accept that’s how it works. Once we are together though, isn’t the rest on our terms?”

Finally, Peter takes a longer breath and some of the intensity fades from his expression.

“You’re looking at me funny,” he notes. “I know I talked a lot. Are you gonna say something?”

“Just that you sounded smart and it’s pissing me off.”

He gives her dry joke a sad smile.

“Losing people sucks.” His voice is like a rock falling, falling, falling through deep water. “For as much as you don’t want me to make promises, I know that I’d try really fucking hard not to lose you. You can’t hate me, or your brain can’t hate me, for that. It’s the human element of this whole thing, which should be the part you like, since you’re so anti-destiny.”

Looks like Peter’s raised his own spirits enough to offer a conspiratorial little smile at the end there.

“Another repulsively astute point,” she says flatly and watches his smile broaden. Fuck, it makes her heart feel like a marshmallow that’s melting onto a s’more and simultaneously being stretched until it tears into sticky ribbons.

He checks his watch and gets to his feet.

“I gotta get home.”

“Did I miss the soulmate-decision deadline?” she teases. Feels weird. She stands too and they clomp back down to the gym floor.

“No! God, no, I wasn’t trying to rush you by looking at the time!”

“Parker, I’m messing with you. Chill.”

She eyes his winter clothing.

“Or maybe don’t. Looks like you’re chill enough already. Sorry for being born during a blizzard. My dad told me he and my mom barely got to the hospital in time for me to not be born in the car, the roads were so bad.”

Peter appraises her right back.

“Sorry for being born during a heatwave. I wish I could ask my mom what that was like, but you already know about my parents.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to start comparing…”

“No, I know,” Peter says. “I miss her, but it’s not always the worst, having a certain moment make me notice that I could’ve learned something from her here. It’s actually easier to appreciate than forget, even if it’s sad for a little while.”

“If I promise to try it, will you cut it out with the insightful bullshit?”

Instead of answering that question, he springs something else on her.

“For the record, I know the only reason you didn’t smile at me is because you were trying so hard not to.”

Immediately, MJ turns her back on him and smirks as she heads for the far exit.

* * *

Peter’s seen a lot of snow. Almost all the weather he’s _ever_ seen is snow, and even at the point in his day when the snowfall takes its lunchbreak, there’s over a foot on the ground and dense grey clouds up above. He thinks it’s crazy how snow fills people with wonder―mainly in Christmas movies and holiday episodes of TV shows. The way he feels about snow is probably how people living in late-spring-to-early-fall weather feel about grass. It’s just _there_ , the base layer of their environment.

Except tonight Peter has his blind up, watching the thin sprinkle the blizzard has slowed into catch the light from other people’s apartments, a clean, meltable glitter. He’s tired and can’t sleep, but it’s a quiet comfort of sleeplessness, not the kind where he stresses and twists around between his sheets. The weight of the day keeps him flat on his back in bed as he thinks it all over. His feelings, MJ’s, the satisfaction of finally having a long talk with her, the biting pain of seeing her cry. In his mind, since he first guessed it might be her who’s his soulmate, he’s been tailoring their love. Their potential love. He didn’t know what it would look like before having her to mould a concept around. Learning that she was probably his soulmate, studying her, Peter decided they were meant for a slow love. Love would be something that slipped gradually across them, like pulling up the sheet on a bed or stepping into a long summertime shadow.

He’s surprised at the kind of love MJ envisioned; from the berth she gave it when she talked that afternoon, it sounded big and powerful and immediate. Faster than an avalanche, ringing through their lives louder than a thunderclap. He wanted them to confirm their bond soon so that unhurried love could begin to develop and she was afraid that the second they started would be the second they were swept away. No wonder she avoided him, Peter thinks. The love she anticipated would equal an act of god and he isn’t ready for that either. He turns his face away from the direction of the window and stares at his dark ceiling.

Peter has plenty of forceful love in his life―he can’t consider it _enough_ forceful love, because there’s no such thing as enough love, is there?―thanks to May. She took on the mom-ish role of caring for him after his parents were gone, then the single-mom-ish role of raising him into approaching adulthood without Uncle Ben. While her aura is soft, her whole attitude has been very roll-up-your-sleeves where he’s concerned. May faced down his extreme need for parental TLC like it was a battle and continues to love him fiercely, even if his steadily increasing age and Happy’s calming presence temper her a little these days. So Peter’s covered in the department of that kind of love. He hopes his forever person doesn’t feel the need to bombard him with a truckload of love from the start; it would make him feel pitied, somehow, like they were putting all their effort into making up for the fact that he doesn’t have parents anymore. Peter _knows_ he doesn’t have parents, he doesn’t want or need to be smothered to make up for their absence.

This chance (it still isn’t a solid thing) with MJ could let him grow into devotion. He’s kinda longing to know what that feels like. The theoretical adjective he’d attach to it is _normal_. Whatever the universe’s input here, Peter really believes the most normal thing after confirming their bond would be to allow things to develop however felt right. And with the bond backing them, technically anything they do would be right, right? He wants them to grow up together and grow into each other. He doesn’t want MJ to be the bond or a love lightning bolt, zipping down to fry him. The assurance that they’ll fall in love is enough to start. It’s an invaluable forecast, as dependable as the weather he’s been experiencing all his life.

When his phone buzzes on his nightstand, Peter feels as though he’s being retracted like a telescope―thoughts way far out in space drawing back to his building, his bedroom, his body. He rubs his eyes with his knuckle as he looks at the screen.

 _So… you were unexpectedly deep today_ , MJ’s text reads.

They never exactly exchanged numbers, but he got hers from Betty one time and saved it just in case. His heart beats faster at the thought that maybe MJ did the same.

 _And you’re still mad about it?_ Peter guesses, tapping out his reply.

_Oh, you are up._

_There was a lot to think about_ , he tells her honestly. _Why are you still awake?_

_Because the day you were born must have been the most humid day of the year. It’s too hot to sleep._

_Also_ , MJ tags on, _that crap you said about thinking._

* * *

She lets her phone drop onto the thin cotton sheet of the mattress and uses its light to help her see as she rips nervously at the skin around her fingernail. Texting Peter wasn’t even really a thought―she just found herself _doing_ it, surprised by how natural the instinct felt and despite the fact that she really doesn’t reach out to people. That she would reach out to the one person she was utterly vulnerable in front of less than 12 hours ago is something MJ would never have expected of herself. But she’s let him in this far.

 _And you decided to talk to me about it?_ Peter finally responds, postponing further anxiety.

_I know. My boundaries are completely fucked after this afternoon. I might never be able to bottle up my feelings again. Hope you’re happy, loser._

_Well_ , Peter texts, _you don’t have to do that. If you need to empty the bottle every once in a while, I get it. I can be your glass. Or your straw?_

_You want to suck up my feelings? Like some kind of feelings-vampire?_

God, she is fucking this up so severely. He’s going to wish she’d just kept ignoring him instead of caving to his persistent friendliness and that look he gets that’s all eyes, totally impossible to say no to. Amazingly, her last stupid text isn’t enough to make him say he’s going to sleep now, or worse, not respond at all.

 _Just a feelings-relief_ , he corrects. _Unless you like the idea of the feelings-vampire better._

 _You don’t need to bend to my will like that, Parker._ Suddenly, MJ’s kind of angry.

 _Don’t give me what you think I want just because you feel bad about seeing me cry_ , she continues. _Or because you think you can make this work by doing whatever I want. Never appease me._

 _I care_ , he says simply.

Wow, she feels like a jerk.

 _Because destiny told you that you could take that care and trade up for the promise of eternal love?_ she snarks back, apparently not quite done with the jerk thing.

_I had no idea texting you would be even more fun than talking in person._

Is he… is he being sarcastic with her? MJ smiles at her phone. Incredible.

 _I’m fun in all mediums_ , she says, not having a clear idea of what she means and looking forward to Peter trying really hard to interpret it.

 _Knock knock_ , is his response.

_Who’s there?_

_Ummmm idk._

_‘Ummmm idk’ who?_

_No, I seriously don’t know_ , he says.

MJ snorts in confused laughter and shifts around to find a cool spot on her sheet; she wasn’t lying about the heat.

 _Why would you send me the beginning of a knock-knock joke with no joke?_ she asks.

_I thought I’d think of the rest of it in the moment. I know that’s dumb. It just felt like we were maybe in a zone there and I wanted to keep it going._

_Relax. I’m not going to strike you out for one ill-conceived knock-knock joke._

_What about two?_

_I wouldn’t test your luck_ , MJ counsels, still smiling.

She can see that he’s composing a reply, but she beats him to it: _I was thinking about what you said about destiny. Actually, what you said about the opposite of destiny, the thing about the human element._

_And?_

She can practically sense his tension as she holds her phone in her hand.

_I think it’s a good thought. That two people can still make a relationship theirs._

_Ned said something to me today._

_How unusual._

_Shut up_ , Peter quips back. _He said that confirming you’re somebody’s soulmate is like the last big step._

_Oh?_

_Yeah, I think he’s totally wrong._

_So do I._

Replying that way felt like a huge leap and yet, MJ took it. It doesn’t take long after that for her to start getting tired, blinking long and slow until she’s only opening her eyes when her phone vibrates against her fingers. Peter says he’s tired too and they wrap the conversation up. There’s a suggestion of seeing each other at school the next day. It shouldn’t have any special meaning―it’s a throwaway farewell, less than a promise―but she reacts to it with her last bit of focus. _See you in the morning_ , are her exact words.

She cranes her phone out over the side of her bed with her arm, then lets it go just a little too far from the floor. Probably fine, though it clatters against the surface. Protected by the night and her closed eyes, MJ feels around inside her mind, looking for the taut tug-of-war rope that should be telling her that, one, she doesn’t want to meet with Peter because he’s probably her soulmate and soulmates are a lie and a scam, and two, that she _does_ want to meet with Peter because he has a cute smile that he shows her even when she doesn’t give him much reason to. Then she thinks about how much she prefers first steps to last steps.

* * *

He could be a clone. He could be a clone in a programmed world, living his programmed life the same every day, but with, like, fake memories that fool him into believing in variety. Because he does believe in it. Today, Peter wakes up and change seems possible.

There’s snow on the ground outside and he has to get his socks on before putting his feet on the floor and he’s eating his breakfast too slowly and the way his aunt and Happy are dressed says it’s still spring. Peter asks about rain. May says, “Any time now,” and keeps reading the paperwork she has folded open on the table as she scratches absently at her arm.

“Amazing,” Peter replies, meaning it, as he picks up his bowl and slurps the rest of his cereal until milk runs down his chin.

His aunt glances up to give him a funny look. He’s pretty sure it’s not about the milk, but there’s no time to ask. If he hurries, he’ll leave ahead of his usual schedule, thanks to this new breakfast hack. He wants to get to school. School is such a great place to be.

Peter races out of the apartment and down the stairs like he’s 10 minutes late instead of 3 minutes early. It’s in the building’s entryway that he gets a feeling. Four feet from the glass door that he sees her standing on the sidewalk, snow she can’t feel partway up her mostly-bare legs. Pushing the door open when she quits looking away down the street and stares straight back at him instead. When MJ smiles, Peter smiles back. It could be a life-changing moment, or it might just be a reflex. Because they started to let each other in, he’ll probably never know the answer. Anyway, why does there only have to be one?

“I’ve been waiting,” she says. “I thought you’d be down sooner.”

He laughs self-deprecatingly.

“I tend to cut my timing kinda close in the morning. You wanna get going?” Peter jerks his head to the side.

“Yeah, we should. You’re probably getting cold just standing there.”

With his timing slightly off, they’re ahead of schedule for the bus he’s usually running to catch, so they decide to walk up to the next stop. As they approach the intersection, the light changes to yellow.

“We can beat it if we run,” Peter suggests, trying not to strangle himself by catching his scarf as he hikes his backpack higher on his shoulders.

But MJ goes, “ _Wait_ ,” so urgently that he stops at the corner.

“What is it?”

“I thought I just…” With a puzzled expression, she extends her hand, palm up. Not towards Peter, but away from him. “…felt a raindrop.”

They lock eyes.

“You want my coat?” he offers. MJ smiles again.

“I’ll let you know.”


End file.
